End Poverty in California movement

The End Poverty in California movement (EPIC) was a political campaign started in 1934 by famed socialist writer Upton Sinclair. The movement formed the basis for Sinclair’s campaign for Governor of California in 1934. The plan called for a massive public works program, sweeping tax reform, and guaranteed pensions. The plan gained major support, with thousands joining End Poverty Leagues across the state. EPIC never came to fruition due to Sinclair’s defeat in the 1934 election, but is seen as an influence on New Deal programs enacted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Plan

Sinclair laid out his vision for EPIC in his book I, Governor of California, and How I ended Poverty: A True Story of the Future. Specifically, the plan called for state seizure of idle factories and farm land where the owner had failed to pay property taxes.The government would then hire the unemployed to work on the farms and at the factories. The farms would then operate as self-sufficient, worker-run co-ops. EPIC also called for the implementation of California’s first state income tax.The tax was to be progressive, with the wealthiest being taxed at 30%. The plan would also have increased inheritance taxes and instituted a 4% tax on stock transfers. EPIC also included government provided pensions for the old, disabled, and widowed. To implement EPIC, Sinclair called for the creation of three new government agencies: the California Authority for Land (CAL), the California Authority for Production (CAP), and the California Authority for Money (CAM). CAL was to implement the plan for seizure and cultivation of unused farm lands. CAP was to do the same for idle factories. CAM meanwhile was to be used to finance CAL and CAP by issuing scrip to workers and issues bonds for the purchase of lands, factories, and machinery.

Campaign

After two previous unsuccessful runs for Governor as a member of the Socialist Party, Sinclair was encouraged by the election of President Roosevelt in 1932 to switch his affiliation to the Democratic Party in September 1933. A grassroots movement soon formed in support of EPIC, with thousands joining End Poverty Leagues across the state. A weekly newspaper, the EPIC News, appeared in support of the plan, and reached a circulation of nearly a million by the time of the Gubernational primary in August 1934. Several EPIC-supporting candidates won the primaries for state assembly and state senate seats. Sinclair didn’t find total support from his party, however, with Roosevelt refusing to endorse Sinclair, seeing the plan as too radical.

EPIC faced major opposition by the Republican Party and major media figures. Opponents of EPIC “organized the most lavish and creative dirty-tricks campaign ever seen—one that was to become a landmark in American politics” involving “turning over a major campaign to outside advertising, publicity, media and fundraising consultants for the first time.” Notable among these opponents were the heads of the major movie studios in Hollywood. This was largely due to Sinclair’s proposal to hand over idle movie studio lots to unemployed film workers to make movies of their own. In reaction, the studio heads threatened to move film operations to Florida, and deducted money from employee’s paychecks to give directly to the campaign of Sinclair’s Republican opponent for Governor, Frank Merriam. In addition, two of the state’s most influential media moguls, William Randolph Hearst and Harry Chandler used their papers to solely cover Merriam’s campaign and to attack Sinclair. In the face of this coordinated opposition, and without the backing of Roosevelt, Sinclair began trailing Merriam in the polls. On November 6, 1934, Merriam defeated Sinclair with 1,138,629 (48.9%) to Sinclair’s 879,537 (37.8%). Despite his defeat, Sinclair’s vote total was the twice as large as the vote total of any Democratic candidate in California history to that point. In addition, two dozen candidates running on the EPIC platform were elected to the state legislature.

Legacy

Despite Sinclair’s defeat, EPIC is still recognized as being strongly influential on Roosevelt’s New Deal programs after 1934. Harry Hopkins, a senior adviser to Roosevelt who would go on to oversee many New Deal programs, proposed an End Poverty in America campaign in late 1934 that the New York Times wrote “differs from Sinclair’s plan in detail, but not in principle.”

Later State Supreme Court Justice Stanley Mosk declared that EPIC was “the acorn from which evolved the tree of whatever liberalism we have in California.”

Candidates supported

• John W. Baumgartner, Los Angeles City Council member, 1933–35
• Parley Parker Christensen, Utah and California politician, Esperantist
• Delamere Francis McCloskey, Los Angeles City Council member, 1941–43

Bibliography

• I, Governor of California, And How I Ended Poverty: A True Story of the Future (1933–1934) by Upton Sinclair
• The Campaign of the Century: Upton Sinclair and the EPIC Movement in Calfifornia (1992) by Greg Mitchell ISBN 0-679-74854-7

External links

• Upton Sinclair, The Literary Digest, October 13, 1934 End Poverty in California: The EPIC Movement